About a Rock 'n' Roll Name-Dropper

Laurie Kaye is a writer and producer, and 'Confessions of a Rock ’n’ Roll Name-Dropper: My Life Leading Up to John Lennon’s Last Interview' is her long-awaited memoir.  In it, we read about Kaye's music-related early life wrapped around December 8th. 1980 which Kaye spent with John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the legendary Dakota apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side!  While working for RKO Radio, twenty-something rock journalist and news anchor Laurie Kaye co-conducted an interview with her longtime idol, John Lennon. It sadly became Lennon's final interview on what tragically turned out to be his last day on the planet.  That evening, John Lennon was gunned down by a creep Laurie Kaye had encountered just hours before. Lennon's assassin (whom Kaye refuses to refer to by name) had blocked Kaye's path outside the Dakota, harassing her with questions right after the interview such as, “Did you talk to him?” and “Did you get his autograph?", and in the following years, Laurie Kaye has continued to beat herself up and feel horribly guilty over her failure to recognize that this jerk was carrying a gun and should have been reported to the Dakota security team!  

Laurie Kaye also reflects on how and why she became teen runaway from her dysfunctional family, and ended up loving to Bali in Indonesia to study Balinese dancing and teach Ecnglish!  And when she returned, she became a radio journalist, writer, producer and on-air news anchor! Along the way, she interviewed many incredible music industry rockstars including John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Grace Slick, Talking Heads, The Ramones, David Bowie, Mick Jagger (whom she put on hold so that he could listen to her newscast before getting down to business, and Mick was super compliemntary!) and many more over the years !

But it was that December 1980 day she shared a loveseat with John Lennon and watched him push his iconic granny glasses down the length of his nose and smile and compliment her questions and comments during their interview, and as she says she believes it was both the best and worst day of her entire life!